Creeper
Creepers are common hostile mobs that use a suicide-style attack: They approach players and then explode, causing massive damage to players, entities, and blocks within a short radius. Creepers spawn in the overworld at night, and in locations with a light level of 7 or less, just like most other hostile mobs. However, unlike Zombies and Skeletons, Creepers will not catch fire in sunlight, and those spawned in darkness will continue to roam in daylight until they perform an attack, are killed, or despawn. Creepers are especially dangerous due to their near-silent approach, save for light footsteps and an occasional rustling noise. A Creeper will warn the player moments before it explodes with an infamous burning fuse noise. If the player can manage to move far enough within about one second of this noise, the explosion will be canceled, and the creeper will attempt to approach again. Creepers run from cats and ocelots,1 and will ignore the player to run away when a feline is too close. As cats can be acquired and controlled by the player, this provides an important avenue of defense from Creeper attacks. Creepers have become notorious and infamous among Minecraft players for their infuriating habit of sneaking up on the Player to inflict devastating damage following an all-too-short warning sound. They have arguably become the most recognizable image from Minecraft, as well as the game's unofficial mascot. Appearance The creeper is a handless humanoid creature with four short legs hanging off the bottom edges of its rectangular body. It has large, empty eye sockets, a mouth twisted into a signature sad expression, and a greenish, grass-like camouflage skin. When asked to describe the physical texture of a Creeper, Notch said they would feel "crunchy, like dry leaves". Behavior Creepers will chase after any player they see within a 16 block radius. Creepers will climb steps, navigate mazes, and traverse other complex obstacles in order to get as close as possible to the player. They will cease pursuit if the player moves more than 16 blocks away. When within one block of a player, a Creeper will hiss loudly, start flashing and inflating, and violently explode after 1.5 seconds. Killing a Creeper before the countdown finishes will prevent it from detonating. A Creeper's detonation can be halted if the player moves out of the blast radius, or knocks the Creeper back sufficiently to do the same via an attack (about 3 - 5 blocks, depending on the difficulty setting). Creepers will flee from cats and ocelots if one is too close, even if the player is within their range of sight. A Creeper that sees a cat will run directly away from the cat and come to a stop after a "safe" distance has been reached. This distance is smaller than the creeper's range of sight, which this results in a possible endless cycle of approach and fleeing if a player is standing near a cat. Creepers will still detonate in their fleeing mode and thus are still a danger if the player gets too close. If the player manages to block a creeper behind a soul sand one-way entrance, they can approach up to two blocks without triggering the countdown, but entering a sneaking position will cause the Creeper to hiss and initiate the countdown. A Creeper's explosion is dependent on the difficulty level. In hard mode, in full diamond armor, and in close range, it can knock a player down to only 2 hearts. Charged Creeper explosions are 50% more powerful than TNT and twice that of a normal Creeper. As with TNT and Ghast fireballs, all dropped items in the explosion radius will be destroyed. A certain percentage of blocks destroyed by the Creeper will survive the blast and can be picked up. Harder blocks caught in an explosion will shield blocks behind them to some degree. If a creeper detonates in water, it does no damage to the environment. A charged Creeper is created when lightning strikes within 3–4 blocks of a normal Creeper, which significantly increases its explosive power. This is a rare occurrence, though third-party software can be used to create them. Charged Creepers are distinguished from normal Creepers by the blue aura surrounding them (can be found in power.png in the armor folder). Many players refer to charged Creepers as "Electric" or "Lightning" Creepers. Creepers never spawn initially charged. Charged Creepers take damage from the initial lightning strike, so it takes fewer attacks to kill them than ordinary Creepers. Their countdown timers act the same as uncharged Creepers, both in terms of range and time. An explosion caused by a charged creeper is more powerful than the explosion caused by a regular creeper (see image) or from a single block of TNT, both in force and radius. It is possible for lightning-struck Creepers to catch fire from adjacent struck ground and burn to death. Charged creepers have the same entity ID as normal creepers. The only difference is that the value of the boolean "powered" tag is set to "1" (true) rather than "0" (false). Combat The safest way to engage a creeper is from a distance by shooting two fully charged arrows at it with a bow so it cannot explode near the player. Trying to kill it with a sword is risky, but it is possible in Easy or Normal modes, or with a knockback enchantment. In Hard mode, many of the following methods are foiled, as the creeper will continue its countdown at a much greater distance. The most basic melee takedown is simply hitting it and retreating a block or two away (out of range, aborting the countdown). This can be repeated until it dies, but mind your footing behind you! If the creeper is climbing to reach the player, say emerging from a hole, knocking it back down is also likely to abort the countdown. Swimming or wading creepers can be easily dealt with using melee attacks, since in water the knockback is far enough to put the creeper out of range. (Note that if it does blow up, water won't protect the player, but will at least prevent cratering.) A sword enchanted with Knockback is useful for fighting creepers as the player can knock creepers out of countdown range before they can explode. Similarly, players can take advantage of the sprinting knockback to prevent creepers from exploding. Another method to kill a creeper is to start with a critical hit, by jumping in the air and, while falling, quickly hit the creeper. Depending on weapon, this may kill the creeper outright, otherwise it will probably be hurt badly enough for one more (non-critical) blow to kill it. The player can find sufficiently high ground, or build a pillar of blocks beneath him or herself, to strike a creeper from above with a melee weapon without the detonation sequence being activated. However, the player should keep in mind that creepers move forwards and to the right (your left) when in pursuit. Various "non-combat attacks" such as lava, or suffocation under gravel, also work as usual. Also as usual, a creeper killed by such means won't drop experience. Cameos Minecraft Maps The Custom Map OXM Land made by Oxm Magazine on the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft has a giant Creeper head on it, known as the land's god Creepthulhu. TV Series Several Creepers have appeared on TV during episodes of the TV show Mad (Criminal Minecraft and ThunderLolcats 5) In ThunderLolcats they use the catchphrase, saying "That'ssss.. a nice wall you've got there." Youtube Videos YouTube hosts many videos that feature Creepers, including review videos, "Let's Play"'s, cartoons, and cameos in many other videos. When searching for the query "Minecraft Creeper", YouTube returns over 500,000 videos. Console/PC Games In Borderlands 2, Creepers appear in a mineshaft in the most north-west part of Caustic Caverns, including Dirt, Coal Ore, Stone, Gold Ore, and a "Badass Creeper" that is twice the strength and size of a regular Creeper. In Airmech, Creepers appear as a unit "skin" for the suicide bomber unit the boomer. Creepers can be either green, blue, or red, depending on the color of the team that makes them. In Octodad: Dadliest Catch, a Creeper head is seen on a shelf in the grocery store along with 2 Pickaxes and some grass blocks. It is part of a collection known as "Mintcraft". Flash Games In Stealing the Diamond, when Henry Stickmin sneaks up to the museum's outer wall with a pickaxe, a Creeper comes up behind him and explodes, destroying part of the wall instead. At the far end of the map in Stick RPG2, a smiling creeper can be seen in a hole at ground level. One of the things you can hit in Katawa Crash is a Creeper. In the game Transformice, there is a creeper head that you may purchase as a hat for your mouse. Other Games In a game called Quube Twodee made by Universal Chicken in Adelaide, Australia, one of the levels has a Creeper face. PixelJunk Shooter 2 for the PS3 shows a small creeper in the title screen hidden among other enemies native to Shooter 2. In a Notch-designed custom level for VVVVVV, "Pyramid Escape", a Creeper's face can be seen carved into the background to the far left of the pyramid. In Torchlight 2 the Creeper plays an important role in an "Easter egg" mission in the cave named "Notch's cave" where the player walks in and sees a group of Creeper charging the player then exploding. Near the end of the cave you can find a minecraft skinned sword. In a game called Strollin, there is a purchasable creeper item, which makes bombs throw you farther. Category:Hostile